BBC ON THIS DAY | 19 | 1975: Davis campaigners stop Test match About This Site | Text Only 1975: Davis campaigners stop Test match Campaigners calling for the release of robber George Davis from prison have vandalised the pitch at Headingley cricket ground in Leeds. They dug holes in the pitch and poured oil over one end of the wicket. The walls surrounding the ground were also daubed with the now- familiar slogans demanding the release of Davis, the east London minicab driver jailed for his part in an armed robbery. The damaged pitch was discovered early on Tuesday by the head groundsman, George Cawthray. Mr Cawthray said: "When I first saw the damage it did not sink in. I was amazed. I thought I should be able to repair the holes but it was the oil that did the damage." The campaigners' actions led to the final match between England and Australia on Tuesday being abandoned. It was declared a draw robbing England of the chance to win back the Ashes and the trophy. 'Mistaken identity' Detectives are searching for several men believed to have travelled from London to Leeds on Monday.

Four police officers from Leeds have travelled to London to assist the Metropolitan police in their investigations Davis, 34, who was sentenced to a 20-year term last year, is serving his sentence at Albany Prison on the Isle of Wight. His supporters say he was the victim of mistaken identity and did not take part in a payroll robbery in Ilford, Essex, when a police officer was shot and injured. Since Davis' imprisonment they have organised marches, petitions and fund-raising events to increase public awareness of his case. In May two campaigners - Davis' brothers-in-law Jim and Colin Dean - carried out a seven-hour roof-top protest at St Paul's cathedral in London. George Davis Is Innocent: The 1970s Campaign That Proved The Police And State Were Not OK | By Anorak on 13 April 2014 | comments 1 Share this: ON August 19, 1975, the third England v Australia Test at Headingley was abandoned following vandalism. A man who said he was a supporter of the George Davis campaign telephoned BBC radio London and claimed the group was responsible.

Slogans were daubed outside the ground and the wicket was vandalised with a bit of digging and poured oil. The Test was declared a draw robbing England of the chance to win back the Ashes and the trophy. In these pictures Australian cricket team captain Ian Chappell and his England counterpart Tony Greig inspect the vandalised pitch. The words “George Davis is innocent” can still be seen on some motorway bridges. In this shot, the policeman with the large mutton chops seems to be guarding the heavy roller. So. Who was Davis? Who wanted him free? And why wasn’t he free? Davis was an east London minicab driver jailed for his part in an armed robbery. In 1975, he was sentenced to a 20-year prison, which he’d been serving at Albany Prison on the Isle of Wight. The robbery had taken place at the London Electricity Board’s offices in Ilford, Essex, on 4 April 1974. During the attack, a police officer was shot and injured. Another was run over. Four men were arrested. Only Davis was convicted. He said he had been fitted up by the police. He said it over and over.

Rose Davis, his wife, believed his innocence. So too did his best friend called Peter Chappell who said he had seen Davis driving his mini cab at the time of the robbery. It was Chappell who had dug up the cricket pitch in Leeds. No-one in power believed any of them. One witness claimed to have seen him abandoning the getaway car. Davis claimed he had been driving a mini- cab on the morning of the crime, delivering a consignment of fish to a restaurant in Chancery Lane. None of the blood samples found at the scene matched his blood type. In May two campaigners – Davis’ brothers-in-law Jim and Colin Dean – carried out a seven-hour roof-top protest at St Paul’s cathedral in London. But Chappell was the driving force to free George Davis, literally – he drove a van down Fleet Street, smashing his van through the front windows of the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mirror. He later drove through the gates of Buckingham Palace. As Adam Curtis notes, Chappell went to Paris on the ferry and drove through the windows of the British Embassy.

And then there was the 1974 Christmas incident in which Peter Chappell blew the lights on the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square as Rose Davis stood vigil for her husband outside Scotland Yard. The campaign grew. This was the working man against the powerful, paternalistic State. Police during a free George Davis campaign demonstration in Leeds in September 1975 The Who performed a benefit concert for Davis at Charlton Athletic’s The Valley football ground. Rose and the band all sported “George Davis Is Innocent” T-shirts. The radical Half Moon theatre company staged a play, George Davis Is Innocent OK, at its tiny theatre in Aldgate. There was an album, featuring tracks by Bob Williamson, Bryan Chalker, Peter Hain, Joe Stead, Alan Ford, Paul Downs, Arbel Jones, Phil Beer, David Stoll, Jane Lee & Rosie Davis. Peter Hain would become a Labour MP and serve in the Cabinets of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. In 1975, he was framed by the South African secret police, Boss, for robbing a bank. He was acquitted after an Old Bailey trial. But the Headingley stunt was the one that really pricked the public conscience.

Of the four people tried for digging up the pitch, three received suspended sentences. Peter Chappell was jailed for 18 months. … punks, radical lawyers, revolutionaries, east-end squatters and artists, and lots and lots of ordinary people who were shocked by the miscarriage of justice. Rose Davis called these groups “soap avoiders”. She said – “they are very intellectual, but most of them never wash”. And the graffiti kept Davis in the public eye, OK: Observer writer Robert Chesshyre wondered what was going on: “First I had to convince the Observer’s editor, David Astor. He had moulded the Observer as the intelligent liberal flagship of the postwar press, but his interests were, on the whole, affairs of state, national policy, topics of concern to the great and the good. Would he buy this tale of a hoodlum and his campaigning wife and friend? Astor had two main questions. Did I genuinely think Davis had been wrongfully convicted? And, if I did, was it of consequence, set against the lofty events with which the paper then mainly concerned itself? “Sucking a mint, Astor pondered.

It wasn’t his sort of story he said finally, but he could see that times were changing and that if a man had received 20 years for a crime he hadn’t committed, we shouldn’t sleep easy until he’d been freed.” Chesshyre wrote up his findings: “There was no forensic link between Davis and the robbery. The police relied on identification evidence and Davis’ supposed statement, which he claimed contained words made up and inserted by a police officer. Davis was picked out at an ID parade by three policemen, all of whom had been travelling in the same car. At a second set of parades held three months after the crime, 34 out of 39 witnesses failed to pick out Davis. And three made wrong identifications. Two ‘mistakes’ were made after Davis swapped his shirt with another man, who was then identified – an odd event at the very least.” Did the police send innocent people to prison? Yes. Did the police lie on oath? Yes. Was there corruption in Scotland Yard’s Robbery Squad? Yes. The head of the Robbery Squad in those days was none other than the legendary Jack Slipper, ‘Slipper of the Yard’, the man who rounded up the Great Train Robbers.

An outside police police investigated the Robbery Squad. They reported back to the Home Office. Home Secretary Roy Jenkins announced that Davis must be released. On May 1976, he was. But the Home Office ruled that the reasons behind his incarceration would remain secret for 34 years. Roy Jenkins said there was serious doubt about his identification. Davis’s sentence was remitted by Royal Prerogative. Power was being tested. In 2011, Davis’ lawyer Bernard Carnell said : “One of the pieces of the jigsaw was the evidence of the woman whose car was hijacked by the robber with her and her children still in the car. After the trial she saw pictures of George Davis in the Daily Mirror and told the police investigation that because of the pictures she was satisfied the person in the car was not George Davis. That evidence has been in possession of the authorities for 35 years and was made available to me only last year.” He let the fame go to his head. Here are two photos of Davis’s arrival at Waterloo Station following his release from prison. Rose is planting a kiss on his cheek. Davis was an idol of the punk movement.

Sham 69’s 1978 debut album Tell Us the Truth, was tribute to him: Only, he was arrested again in 1977 and later admitted his part in an armed robbery at the Bank of Cyprus on Holloway Road, London. He was sentenced to 15 years which was reduced to 11 years on appeal. He’d also been cheating on Rose. Mrs Davis felt let down, noting in her autobiography, The Wars Of Rosie: “Once he’d done what he’d done, I was ashamed… I was never a gangster’s wife. And so I stopped defending him. I felt guilty, like a traitor really… I felt gutted for all those people who had helped us.” Once again she made her way to a police station to make a stand, telling the desk sergeant: “Would you give my husband these clothes and tell him I forgot the rope.” “Rope?” “Yes, to hang his ——- self with.” They divorced. Davis was freed in 1984 but three years later he was sentenced to 18-months for attempting to steal mailbags. After his release, he marred for a second time.

His bride was a London Chief Inspector’s daughter. Davis was a villain. But the never did rob the Ilford Electricity Board. Still, in 2009, the Daily Mail’s Andrew Malone still hadn’t understood what the man’s story represented: Despite what his gullible Left-wing supporters thought at the time, his original conviction may have been correct and it has never been officially overturned. His other convictions are beyond question. It wasn’t just about Davis. It was about police lies sending a man to prison. It was about authority being questioned and found wanting. It was the story of a slogan that went ‘viral’ and a campaign that achieved its aims. It was about lies being maintained by secrecy backed by arcane laws. In May 2011, George Davis finally won his appeal against that 1975 conviction. Three Court of Appeal judges declared his conviction “unsafe”. But they said they could not “positively exonerate him”. Lord Justice Hughes said: “We do not know whether Davis was guilty or not, but his conviction cannot be said to be safe.

As we have made clear, the fact that he was an active and known criminal does not affect this question, nor does it make it any the less important that his conviction should not be upheld unless it is clear that it is safe.” Said Davis, 69: “This is a bittersweet moment for me. I am, of course, delighted that my conviction has been quashed. I have been protesting my innocence since 1974, and always claimed I was falsely identified. But it should not have taken 36 long years to stand here like this.” How can police lies and an unsafe conviction not mean that George Davis is innocent? Has anything changed? George Davis appeal win sparks Headingley Ashes memories - BBC News BBC News George Davis appeal win sparks Headingley Ashes memories 24 May 2011 Close share panel Image caption Slogans were also daubed on the walls around the ground News that a man has won his appeal against conviction for armed robbery in the 1970s will rekindle memories for cricket followers in West Yorkshire. George Davis was jailed for armed robbery and wounding after a raid in April 1974 in Essex.

Campaigners for his release vandalised the Headingley ground in August 1975 causing an Ashes Test to be abandoned. After climbing into the ground, the supporters dug holes in the pitch and poured oil over one end of the wicket. The 'George Davis is innocent' slogan was also painted on the wall around the ground. Oil damage The groundsman at the time George Cawthray said: "When I first saw the damage it did not sink in. I was amazed. I thought I should be able to repair the holes but it was the oil that did the damage." The campaigners' actions led to the final day of the third Test match between England and Australia being abandoned and the game declared a draw. Image caption The captains Tony Greig (left) and Ian Chappell (right) inspected the damage The fourth Test at the Oval in London was drawn and Australia won the Ashes 1-0. Four police officers from Leeds travelled to London to help the Metropolitan Police investigate the vandalism. Four people were tried for digging up the pitch at Headingley. Three received suspended sentences but one was jailed for 18 months.

Now, more than 35 years on, three appeal court judges allowed the conviction challenge brought by Davis, who is now 69 and lives in London. George Davis might be innocent – OK, says court of appeal | Law | The Guardian George Davis might be innocent – OK, says court of appeal Armed robbery conviction from 1974 that sparked UK-wide graffiti campaign quashed by judges Graffiti in 1975 by campaigners for George Davis's release from prison. Photograph: PA Close This article is 5 years old The graffiti that have been scrawled on walls across Britain for three decades were almost right. George Davis , convicted of a robbery in 1974, may have claimed he was innocent, but the court of appeal on Tuesday more prosaically finally declared his conviction to be unsafe. Davis was convicted of involvement in a robbery of the London Electricity Board in Ilford, east London, and the campaign maintaining his innocence won the backing of pop stars including the Who lead singer Roger Daltry, and even stopped the 1975 Ashes test when supporters vandalised the pitch.

The damage to the Headingley cricket pitch, which forced the abandonment of the England v Australia match, propelled the campaign into international prominence, and in 1976 Davis was released from prison under royal prerogative from a 20-year sentence for robbery and wounding with intent to resist arrest. In September 1977, Davis let his supporters down when he was caught red-handed robbing a branch of the Bank of Cyprus in Holloway, north London. He pleaded guilty to his involvement in an armed robbery and was sentenced to 15 years, reduced to 11 on appeal. If he was unlucky in his ability to plan and execute an armed robbery, he was much luckier in his choice of friends and the support he got from his late wife, Rose. Despite his 1977 crime, they never let up in their campaign to see Davis's name cleared of the 1974 robbery. The campaigners daubed slogans on walls across London, reading "George Davis Is Innocent OK". On Tuesday, more than 35 years on, the conviction was quashed by the court of appeal.

But Davis, now aged 69, did not hear the court declare his innocence, with the judges saying too much time had passed for them to reach a decision on that. Davis was originally convicted on identification evidence, which he disputed. He also claimed evidence that exonerated him was kept from his defence. Lord Justice Hughes said material relating to identifications made by those at the scene of the robbery, and "limited new evidence" affecting the "very positive identification" given by another witness, "so far undermines the case that it is impossible to be satisfied that this conviction is safe". But he added: "We do not know whether Davis was guilty or not, but his conviction cannot be said to be safe." The judge added that Davis's subsequent conviction did not affect the court of appeal's judgment: "As we have made clear, the fact that he was an active and known criminal does not affect this question, nor does it make it any the less important that his conviction should not be upheld unless it is clear that it is safe." Following the decision, Davis said: "I have been protesting my innocence since 1974 and have always claimed I was falsely identified. But it should not have taken 36 long years.

"I have no intention of seeking compensation for my wrongful conviction. "I have pursued this appeal for all these years because I wanted all those people who worked for, and helped, the campaign in the 1970s to know that their support was justified." Davis's solicitor, Bernard Carnell, said: "The court of appeal heard that senior officers withheld from the jury material they considered undermined their case. Police officers, the Home Office and the office of the director of public prosecutions kept secret evidence provided to them after the trial which undermined the safety of Mr Davis's conviction." The case was referred back to the court of appeal by the criminal cases review commission. Is George Davis innocent? | Express Yourself | Comment | Daily Express VIDS Is George Davis innocent? SHORTLY before 7am on August 19, 1975, George ­Cawthray, the head groundsman at Headingley cricket pitch in Leeds, arrived to inspect the wicket. With ­England poised to win the third Test match against Australia and take back the Ashes there was excitement in the air. But it was also drizzling so George was in no hurry to get the covers off.

By Simon Edge PUBLISHED: 00:00, Fri, Feb 25, 2011 When he eventually did he was ­horrified by what he saw. Three-inch holes had been made in the pitch – with kitchen knives and forks it later turned out – and oil had been poured over one end of the wicket. The high walls around the ground had been daubed with slogans. “Sorry, it had to be done,” read one, “but George Davis is innocent.” The attack on the pitch caused outrage, not least because the Test was declared a draw and the Ashes stayed in Australia. But it also made a household name of Davis, a minicab driver from the East End of London who had been jailed for 20 years – later reduced to 17 on appeal – for armed robbery. As the campaign took off rock group The Who performed a benefit concert wearing “George Davis is innocent” T-shirts, while punk band Sham 69 wrote a song with that slogan as the title. The same words appeared as graffiti on motorway bridges and railway arches and nine months after the ­Headingley incident Davis was released to a folk hero’s welcome.

Notoriously he then made monkeys of his supporters when he was caught red-handed holding up a bank. “I felt gutted for all those ­people who had helped us,” said his disgusted wife Rose, calling in the divorce lawyers. She had led the ­campaign for her husband, setting a template for other miscarriage of ­justice causes – but now it became harder for victims such as the ­Birmingham Six and the ­Guildford Four to get a hearing. Claims of ­innocence were treated with extra scepticism. But 35 years on George Davis is back, once more insisting to the world that he didn’t do the original job. This week he was in court again, a sudden blast from the past, saying he wanted the case cleared up once and for all to vindicate the friends, family and ­supporters who campaigned to release him nearly four decades ago. “It is our intention to demonstrate to the Court of Appeal that evidence which shows Mr Davis’s convictions in 1975 to be unsafe has been in the hands of the authorities since at least 1977,” said his solicitor Bernard ­Carnell before the court hearing.

Aged 33 at the time of the violent armed robbery at the London ­Electricity Board in Ilford, Essex, in April 1974, Davis had often been in trouble with the law. He had been found guilty of drink-driving and receiving stolen goods but the LEB job was of a different order – a policeman was shot in the leg – and Davis was ­adamant he had an alibi, producing a log book ­detailing his taxi jobs that day. Three co-accused were acquitted but Davis was found guilty, on identification evidence from five police officers and a civilian. His wife Rose and friend Peter Chappell then embarked on one of the most successful justice campaigns in British legal history. Chappell smashed a lorry through the glass doors of two national newspapers on Fleet Street then did the same into the gates of Buckingham Palace. The George Davis is Innocent slogan began to appear on walls in East London and beyond – some of the ­graffiti survives today – and Rose’s two brothers spent seven hours ­sitting on the roof of St Paul’s ­Cathedral.

But it was the Headingley stunt – for which Chappell was jailed for 18 months – that got the campaign taken up by a much wider ­community. A London fringe theatre put on a play called George Davis Is Innocent OK. Rose herself joined The Who on stage at their concert at Charlton Athletic Football Club in south-east London. And Left-wing lawyers and activists including Peter Hain, Gareth Peirce and Michael Mansfield joined the cause. I n May 1976 home secretary Roy Jenkins ordered Davis to be released under the Royal ­Prerogative of Mercy. This was ­neither a quashing nor a pardon but it did reflect serious doubt about the ­identification evidence of the police witnesses. Riding high on the jubilant ­welcome he received when he arrived back at London’s Waterloo Station from Albany Prison on the Isle of Wight Davis set about exploiting his ­new-found celebrity. “He was full of himself when he came out. He went on a bender for about 18 months,” his son Rick, also a taxi driver, has said. “All he was doing was getting drunk, coming home and having rows [with Rose]. He wasn’t the same man as when he went in.

He was the famous George Davis.” He paraded a mistress, had ­several other affairs and behaved as if he was untouchable. Eighteen months after his release he was caught in the act of robbing the Bank of Cyprus in North London. Davis tried to deny it to Rose, saying he had been fitted up again. “And I’m the Queen of Sheba,” she replied. When she heard his ­girlfriend had been to visit him in the police station she turned up with a bag of his clothes cut into ribbons, and apologised for forgetting the rope. “What rope?” the duty officer asked. “To hang his f****** self with,” replied Rose. She divorced him six months later. Sentenced to 15 years Davis was released in 1984 but was jailed again in 1987 after holding up the London-to-Brighton mail train. Rose, who died of cancer two years ago, was more disgusted than ever. “After shouting at the top of her voice that her husband was innocent she then had everyone saying ‘I told you so’ after he carried out those other jobs,” their son said.

“It wasn’t so much my dad’s affairs – it was the fact that she’d been publicly humiliated. She put her heart and soul into getting my dad out of jail, only for him to do those other stupid things. It was very hard to take. She was bitter – she never got over that.” B ut Roger Daltrey of The Who has no regrets about sticking his neck out. “I’m not saying he was an angel but he didn’t do the crime he was ­convicted for,” the rock star told the Daily Express yesterday. “I was kind of aware of the group of people who actually did that ­robbery because it was sort of known about in certain circles. And on that occasion it had nothing to do with George. I supported him then because I knew he’d gone down for something he didn’t do and that was wrong. I’m all for ­justice but bang them up for something they’ve actually done.” He added that he only met Davis on one occasion. Davis is now married again – to the daughter of a police chief inspector – and insists he has gone straight since his last release from prison in 1989. Now 69 he says his life and livelihood have been badly affected by his initial conviction.

“Twice I have applied for a ­London cab licence and twice the police have turned me down,” he has said. He is now working as a minicab driver again and has denied he is seeking to make money via ­statutory compensation if his appeal is ­successful. Last year the case was referred to the appeal court by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. The commission noted that ­information that could have assisted the defence was not disclosed at the time of the trial and that ­evidence subsequently obtained meant a court might quash the ­conviction. As a result Davis’s legal team believe he is still a victim, irrespective of his criminal behaviour since his release. His solicitor Mr Carnell added: “If as I believe there has been a failure for over 30 years by those in ­authority to disclose essential ­evidence which could have demonstrated that Mr Davis is innocent it is as serious an affront as there could be to the expectation of a defendant having a fair trial.” Headingley 1975: When vandals stopped play - Yorkshire Post Headingley 1975: When vandals stopped play A young cricket fan reads protesters' graffiti near the Headingley gates in 1975.

06:00 Wednesday 19 August 2015 Have your say On this day 40 years ago, the world was asking one question: “Who is George Davis anyway?”. John Rigg recalls a Headingley Test that remains unique in British sporting history. FORTY years ago today saw an incident that remains unique in the annals of sporting history. It was on the early morning of August 19, 1975, the fifth day of the third Ashes Test match, that the groundsman at Headingley cricket ground arrived at work to discover that the pitch had been targeted by vandals. The combination of holes dug in the wicket and oil poured on its surface meant that the match would have to be abandoned. It was immediately apparent from the accompanying graffiti at the ground that the damage had been caused by the friends of a man called George Davis, who was in jail for an armed raid on the London Electricity Board in 1974 – a crime, they argued, that he did not commit. Up to that point, the cricket had been enthralling.

Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson tearing into the England batsmen; the two brave half-centuries from David Steele; Phil Edmonds’s five-wicket haul on debut; the stunning catch by Thomson to dismiss Alan Knott in England’s second innings... At the end of the fourth day, Australia, chasing 445 to win, were making more than a reasonable fist of it at 220 for the loss of three wickets. It was on the Tuesday morning, just as I was setting off to meet my friend to catch the bus to Headingley, that my mother suggested I might wish to listen to the radio news. It was announced that, as the pitch was unfit for play, the game would have to be called off. My mother queried this: surely they could just move a little further along the square and set up the stumps there? All these years later, the recollection is that my immediate feelings were not so much of anger or resentment, but of an overwhelming sense of void and emptiness. What I cannot recall is the weather.

It was not until many years after the event, when I read Ken Dalby’s Headingley Test Cricket 1899-1975, that I realised that “steady rain would almost certainly have prevented play in any case”. The campaign organised on Davis’s behalf was successful. He was released from prison in May 1976, the Home Secretary Roy Jenkins having formed the view that his conviction was unsafe. Davis rewarded his family and friends with his involvement in an armed robbery in 1977 for which he was sent to jail the following year. After his release from that sentence, he was jailed again for another crime in 1987. The passage of time allows one to put the 1975 Headingley Test match “outrage” – as it was described in the following year’s Yorkshire CCC annual report – into some sort of context. Within the UK sporting environment, it remains highly unusual for two reasons: the motive for the protest and the impact on the event being targeted. First, the motive.

I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of protests at sporting events in Britain are related to one of the individuals or teams participating at the event itself, usually reflecting disgruntlement about management and/or ownership. Examples during the last football season included the boycott by some Newcastle United season ticket holders and the pitch invasion on the last game of the season by disgruntled supporters of Blackpool. There is a clear distinction to be made between a protest and naked football hooliganism as evident at, for example, the abandoned football friendly in Dublin between England and Ireland in 1995. In cases in which the causes of the protests are non-sporting, they have often been for reasons that concern politics or religion, albeit with some variations in the clarity of objective. The most famous example is that of Emily Davison throwing herself in front of the field of the 1913 Derby in the cause of female suffrage.

More recent instances of individual protest include a former Roman Catholic priest, Neil Horan, proclaiming that the end of the world was nigh as he ran across the Silverstone track waving a banner during the 2003 British Grand Prix and Trenton Oldfield’s wail against “the culture of elitism” in British society after he had been fished out of the Thames at the 2012 Boat Race. That both Horan and Oldfield avoided the fatal consequences that befell Davison is, in itself, a minor miracle. Local grievances have also been a cause of protest. There are several examples of disgruntled locals objecting to road closures for cycle events by covering parts of the routes with carpet tacks and drawing pins, including the Etape Caledonian in Perthshire in 2009 and the Etape Cymru in North Wales in 2013. However, with the striking exception of the continual disruption of the 1969 South African rugby tour by anti-apartheid demonstrators, any sizeable political protest at sporting events in Britain has been absent.

By contrast, the George Davis case remains a rare example of direct action being committed with the aim of disrupting or bringing to an end a major sporting event in Britain for what are essentially personal reasons. Other instances are hard to find, though one such case occurred in 2012 when a man called John Foley handcuffed himself to the goalpost during an Everton and Manchester City match in protest at his daughter’s dismissal by a budget airline. Seven years earlier, members of the Fathers 4 Justice campaign group climbed on to the roof of the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield during the Embassy World Snooker Championship. In the case of the George Davis protest, however, there was one crucial difference. The actions of his supporters had the effect of ending the Test match – notwithstanding my mother’s suggested action. This was unlike the other examples referred to here: the 1913 Derby ran its course; the Grand Prix drivers were slowed down by a safety car before resuming the race; the Boat Race was only temporarily halted; at Goodison Park, the football match was delayed for a few minutes; the snooker was unaffected; the cycling in Scotland resumed after an hour-and-a-half; the 1969 Springboks completed their itinerary in full.

By contrast, the England-Australia scorecard in the Yorkshire CCC annual report of 1976 was soberly headed “Match drawn (Pitch violated)”. The report argued that: “It is easy to be wise after the event and plan the security devices which might have been employed. It is less easy to anticipate the actions of the mindless few who will go to any length to draw attention to a cause, however good or bad”. This was a fair standpoint, though I am not sure “mindless” fitted the bill: Davis’s supporters knew exactly what they were doing. The main lesson from the Headingley Test episode of 1975 was to confirm that significant damage could be wrought by those armed with a straightforward plan, simple tools and a perverse imagination. It remains the case today and is a corollary of living in a liberal democracy in which civic conduct is based on mutual trust. John Rigg is the author of sporting memoir An Ordinary Spectator. Sham 69 - George Davis is innocent - YouTube Sham 69 - George Davis is innocent Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content.

Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on May 24, 2011 Sham 69 - George Davis is innocent Album: Sham 69 : Tell Us the Truth (1978) Info on George Davis From the Guardian May 24th 2011 George Davis might be innocent -- OK, says court of appeal Armed robbery conviction from 1974 that sparked UK-wide graffiti campaign quashed by judges The graffiti that have been scrawled on walls across Britain for three decades were almost right. George Davis, convicted of a robbery in 1974, may have claimed he was innocent, but the court of appeal on Tuesday more prosaically finally declared his conviction to be unsafe. Davis was convicted of involvement in a robbery of the London Electricity Board in Ilford, east London, and the campaign maintaining his innocence won the backing of pop stars including the Who lead singer Roger Daltry, and even stopped the 1975 Ashes test when supporters vandalised the pitch.

The damage to the Headingley cricket pitch, which forced the abandonment of the England v Australia match, propelled the campaign into international prominence, and in 1976 Davis was released from prison under royal prerogative from a 20-year sentence for robbery and wounding with intent to resist arrest. In September 1977, Davis let his supporters down when he was caught red-handed robbing a branch of the Bank of Cyprus in Holloway, north London. He pleaded guilty to his involvement in an armed robbery and was sentenced to 15 years, reduced to 11 on appeal. If he was unlucky in his ability to plan and execute an armed robbery, he was much luckier in his choice of friends and the support he got from his late wife, Rose. Despite his 1977 crime, they never let up in their campaign to see Davis's name cleared of the 1974 robbery. The campaigners daubed slogans on walls across London, reading "George Davis Is Innocent OK". On Tuesday, more than 35 years on, the conviction was quashed by the court of appeal.

But Davis, now aged 69, did not hear the court declare his innocence, with the judges saying too much time had passed for them to reach a decision on that. Davis was originally convicted on identification evidence, which he disputed. He also claimed evidence that exonerated him was kept from his defence. Lord Justice Hughes said material relating to identifications made by those at the scene of the robbery, and "limited new evidence" affecting the "very positive identification" given by another witness, "so far undermines the case that it is impossible to be satisfied that this conviction is safe". But he added: "We do not know whether Davis was guilty or not, but his conviction cannot be said to be safe." The judge added that Davis's subsequent conviction did not affect the court of appeal's judgment: "As we have made clear, the fact that he was an active and known criminal does not affect this question, nor does it make it any the less important that his conviction should not be upheld unless it is clear that it is safe." Following the decision, Davis said: "I have been protesting my innocence since 1974 and have always claimed I was falsely identified. But it should not have taken 36 long years.

"I have no intention of seeking compensation for my wrongful conviction. "I have pursued this appeal for all these years because I wanted all those people who worked for, and helped, the campaign in the 1970s to know that their support was justified." Davis's solicitor, Bernard Carnell, said: "The court of appeal heard that senior officers withheld from the jury material they considered undermined their case. Police officers, the Home Office and the office of the director of public prosecutions kept secret evidence provided to them after the trial which undermined the safety of Mr Davis's conviction." The case was referred back to the court of appeal by the criminal cases review commission. Category Why bank robber George Davis wasn't so innocent after all, reveals his ex-wife | Daily Mail Online Why bank robber George Davis wasn't so innocent after all, reveals his ex-wife comments For a man who once gloried in taking on the might of the British judicial system, George Davis was uncharacteristically reluctant to step into the limelight this week. From behind the door of his apartment in an exclusive London mansion block, he begged to be left alone. He had 'retired' from his life of crime, he explained, and he was not going to revisit the bad old days.

'I've never talked about them things all those years ago,' he whined. 'I don't want to talk now. I don't want to cause any more embarrassment to my family.' George Davis is innocent OK: Rose Davis campaigned for her husband, George, to be released from prison Davis was, of course, the subject of one of the most extraordinary, high profile and successful campaigns for the release of any prisoner from a British jail in recent memory. It became a cause celebre of the Seventies. Graffiti announcing 'George Davis is innocent' appeared all over the country - on City buildings, town-hall walls, motorway bridges and at sporting events. Rock stars and Left-wing politicians joined forces to take up the fight, wearing 'innocence' T-shirts and campaigning to help free Davis from a 20-year jail sentence for armed robbery which an unwitting Britain became increasingly convinced was a travesty of justice. Now, against his will, Davis is once again being dragged into the public glare - as a result of the death last week of his ex-wife Rose, the woman who dedicated everything to freeing him from jail all those years ago, only to spend the rest of her life feeling he savagely betrayed and humiliated her.

Up until her death, she had been writing a book on her life with George Davis. Now it has been published posthumously - and it casts a very unflattering light on the man she married, claiming he was far from innocent after all. Davis was a self-styled 'legend' who grew up in an age when the Kray twins ruled London's East End. It was in 1974, after an armed payroll robbery at the London Electricity Board in Ilford, Essex, that he was arrested. Graffiti protesting the innocence of George Davis was daubed on walls in East London There was a shoot-out with the police but Davis was not arrested at the scene. Instead, he was seized later, on the word of a supergrass, and picked out at an identity parade by five witnesses. One witness claimed to have seen him abandoning the getaway car. Davis claimed he had been driving a mini- cab on the morning of the crime, delivering a consignment of fish to a restaurant in Chancery Lane. None of the blood samples found at the scene matched his blood type.

Even though Davis was a friend of gangland figures, ran his own illegal drinking den in the East End and had previous convictions for handling stolen goods, his wife, Rose, was convinced he was innocent. The youngest of 13 children born to an impoverished East End family, she was streetwise and knew he was 'no angel'. But she never believed he had the guts to carry out such a big 'job'. Peter Chappell, a family friend, agreed. He had seen Davis on the day of the robbery and invited him for breakfast. Davis declined, saying he was the only driver on duty at the cab office where he worked and could not leave his post. Davis was nevertheless convicted and sentenced to 20 years in jail; few people believed Rose's claims that her husband was innocent. But Chappell - obsessed with his friend's plight and also convinced of his innocence - knew how to get public attention. Supporters of Davis targeted the wals of Headingly cricket ground, Leeds where they also sabotaged the third test match England versus Australia. First, he smashed a lorry through the glass doors of the offices of the Daily Mirror and the Daily Telegraph in Fleet Street. Then he drove his lorry into the gates of Buckingham Palace.

Next, he masterminded the famous graffiti campaign in which the slogan 'Geoge Davis is Innocent' appeared on walls all over London and spread to other parts of the country. Even today, the fading words can still be seen on walls in the East End. Finally, Chappell and a growing number of campaigners dreamt up a masterstroke that was guaranteed to create interest in the case around the world. They timed it perfectly - just as England were poised to win the Ashes in the cricket series against Australia at Headingley in 1975. Chappell and fellow campaigners stole up to the ground at midnight before the last day's play, and climbed over the perimeter fence. Using cutlery they had stolen from a service station, they dug holes in the wicket and filled them with oil. In huge white letters on the pavilion wall, they daubed the words: 'Sorry it had to be done, but George Davis is innocent.' The match was abandoned. England was in uproar and the Establishment went apoplectic. William Rees Mogg, then editor of The Times, led the trenchant denunciations, demanding the culprits face the full might of the law.

Friends and family of Davis - headed by Rose - took to the streets to protest his innocence by marching from Tower Hill to Downing Street to hand in a protest letter to the Prime Minister One commentator asked: 'Can we hang these people for this?' Davis was threatened by cricket-loving inmates at Albany prison on the Isle of Wight where he was serving his sentence. Chappell was subsequently jailed for 18 months. But the strategy worked: the police announced a review of the evidence. By then, the campaign had attracted thousands of prominent followers - whom George and Rose called 'soap dodgers' because some of them were 'very intelligent people, but just didn't like washing'. Among them was Peter Hain, later to be appointed a government minister by Tony Blair, who attended protest marches. So, too, did Gareth Peirce, the lawyer who also found fame after overturning the conviction of the Guildford Four. Michael Mansfield, QC, the campaigning Left-wing barrister, was another prominent supporter.

With Roger Daltrey of The Who wearing a 'Free George Davis' T-shirt on stage, and the band Sham 69 and countless models and actors taking up Davis's cause, the name of this small-time criminal had become one of the most iconic of the Seventies. Roy Jenkins, Home Secretary, ordered the release of Davis in 1976 on the grounds that forensics did not prove his presence at the scene of the crime and the identity parade was unsound. The Royal Prerogative of Mercy - which required the Queen's consent - was used. This did not, however, mean that Davis was innocent. No matter. After taking the ferry home from the Isle of Wight with Violet Kray, who had been visiting her sons Ronnie and Reggie in Albany, Davis celebrated his freedom with a huge East End knees-up. Rose, pictured outside No 10 Downing Street, became bitter after her husband was released early And that is where the celebrations ended for Rose Davis, whose book reveals what a sham Davis's ' innocent' life really was.

For she shows in painstaking detail how, far from being the innocent hero of legend, George Davis became bewitched by his celebrity status, taking to drink and his old criminal ways with such enthusiasm that he destroyed his life and hers with it. After the initial euphoria, Rose soon realised she had made a mistake. Her husband repaid her by having countless affairs, picking up his first girlfriend within hours of being released. Tellingly, she soon reverted to her maiden name of Dean. With the liberal establishment fawning over him, Davis had let the attention go to his head. 'He loved the limelight,' says Rose. 'He was a face - a celebrity. He'd become a film star. Everywhere he went people recognised him. Me, I used to cringe.' Rick Davis, his son, now 44 and a taxi-driver, says: 'He was full of himself when he came out. He went on a bender for about 18 months. All he was doing was getting drunk, coming home, and they [George and Rose] were having rows. 'He wasn't the same man as when he went in. He was the famous George Davis.' His freedom proved short-lived.

To the acute embarrassment of his supporters, Davis was jailed 18 months later after a raid on the Bank of Cyprus, during which one elderly customer had a gun held to his head and bank tellers cowered while their screens were smashed with hammers. Family friend Peter Chappell masterminded the graffiti campaign and also the damage to Headingley cricket ground during the Ashes in a bid to create interest in the case around the world Again, the police were lying in wait. This time, Davis was sentenced to 15 years. 'I never thought he would have done that,' says Rose. 'I never thought he would have gone and robbed a bank in a million years. I was never a gangster's wife. And so I stopped defending him.' While George was being held by the police for that crime, Rose marched into the station after she heard that her husband's 'moll' had been in to visit him. She took a bag of clothes that she had cut into bits, handing them over to the police and apologising for forgetting the rope. An officer asked: 'What rope?' Rose replied: 'To f****** hang himself with.' They were divorced within six months.

Davis was released in 1984 but in 1987, he was again imprisoned after holding up a mail train between London and Brighton. 'He keeps saying "I was fitted up!" [referring to his later robbery convictions]. Right. And I'm the Queen of Sheba,' writes Rose in the book. 'The sad thing is that he's mucked up other people's lives.' By then, Rose had moved to Stepney, East London, to raise her children. She worked as a waitress and a cleaner - and always respected the law. Deana, her daughter, died of cancer in 2001. Rick, her son, lives with his own family in Essex. He says: 'After shouting at the top of her voice that her husband was innocent, she then had everyone saying "I told you so" after he carried out those other jobs. It wasn't so much my dad's affairs - it was the fact that she'd been publicly humiliated. She put her heart and soul into getting my dad out of jail, only for him to do those other stupid things.

Davis is pictured with his first wife Rose in the back of a car after being released from prison early 'It was very hard to take. She was bitter - she never got over that.' After being released from his last sentence in 1989, George Davis married his second wife, Jennifer, the daughter of a police inspector. They live together in a £500,000 flat in Highgate, North London. Jennifer works in a casino. Friends describe Davis as 'well-fed' and not short of money. Yet, incredibly, Davis claims his life has been ruined by his conviction for the raid on the electricity board all those years ago. 'My life and livelihood have been very badly affected,' he said in 2007, his only public comment for 30 years. 'Twice I have applied for a London cab licence and twice the police have turned me down. Yes I did them [the crimes]. 'I pleaded guilty. But I have been a good boy since then and kept out of trouble.' Davis is now attempting to have his original conviction overturned, raising the prospect of him winning compensation for the two years he spent behind bars.

He will find out next month whether he will be entitled to it after instructing lawyers to apply to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the body set-up to investigate alleged miscarriages of justice. He denies that he's seeking to make money from his campaign to have his conviction overturned. Rose, who died last week, banned Davis from attending her funeral Bernard Carnell, his lawyer, said: 'I have spoken with Mr Davis. He confirms to me that his sole concern is that the Court of Appeal re-examines the 1975 convictions and that his innocence is established.' The truth is that George Davis is not an innocent man. Despite what his gullible Left-wing supporters thought at the time, his original conviction may have been correct and it has never been officially overturned. His other convictions are beyond question. Knowing she had little time left to live when doctors told her that breast cancer had spread, Rose decided before her death to commit the truth about George Davis to print. She will be buried in East London on Friday. Before she died, she insisted that one person be banned from the funeral: George Davis. • The Wars Of Rosie is published by Pennant Books at £14.99.

Question: Which test cricket pitch did the George Davis supporters dig up in 1975
Answer: Headingly